Learning to Live Again
by kireitenshi00
Summary: Post DoomsdayTorchwood The Doctor finds himself in an unexpected meeting with someone who offers up some advice [Oneshot]


So basically I downloaded the complete Doctor Who soundtrack from iTunes, and I've been listening to it obsessively for the past week. I especially love "Doomsday," because it reminds me of that beautiful and tragic good-bye we had at the end of Season 2. As a result of listening to the soundtrack, I've became inspired to write this (perhaps, also in part to an acute case of senioritis…). Anyway, I wanted to get this out there while I was still thinking about it, so please read and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. It's property of BBC. However, if I did own it, I would never have let Billie quit.

The one thing you could always count on about Ralcrix IV was its eternal lovely weather. No matter the time of year, the sun was shining, the birds (or the closest thing to birds) were singing, and children frolicked in the streets. According to the Doctor, this planet was a "conflict free" planet, and this suited his companions just fine. After running wildly away from several warring demigods on Calla and barely surviving the first Russian Revolution, Jack and Martha had decided a day of relaxation was in order. After much cajoling, the Doctor had finally given in and set the TARDIS down in the year 4008 on Ralcrix IV. Immediately, Jack and Martha had wanted to take off and see the sights, but the Doctor hung back a ways, allowing his companions to seek out the nearest bar and shopping center. 'What is it with all the shopping,' the Doctor thought to himself. But he had to smile at the sight of Jack running alongside Martha.

At first, he had thought there would be tension in the TARDIS between Jack and Martha. After all, he had left Jack on Satellite 5 with no explanation of why he left, he had suddenly reappeared with a new companion, and his previous companion was listed as "dead" on Earth. Of course it was expected that tension would arise. But surprisingly, Jack was quite accepting of the new crew on the TARDIS. After he learned that Rose was still alive, although stuck on a parallel world, he expressed relief and asked the inevitable question, "Can we get her back?" At the Doctor's negative response, something seemed to close off inside of Jack, but that didn't deter him from immediately turning and flirting with Martha.

It wasn't until later that evening when Martha had gone off to bed that Jack told the Doctor about his little "issue." The Doctor had been working on the extrapolator beneath the console when Jack walked in, the Doctor's whole body except for his Chucks lay consumed by the wiring and electronics of the TARDIS. "I can't die," Jack began bluntly. The light of the sonic screwdriver stilled, as did the manic hands beneath the console. After a moment of silence, the Doctor scooted out from beneath the console to look at his newfound companion. "You can't die?" he questioned.

"Ever since I came back, I haven't been able to die. I've been hit by a Cyberman twice, been shot twice in the head, and have even sucked the life out of life-sucker. I just can't seem to die," stated Jack.

"I wonder…" began the Doctor, as he fiddled with the controls of the sonic screwdriver. When he found the right setting, he stood up and quickly ran the scanner over Jack. "I really shouldn't be surprised," he muttered.

"Why?" asked Jack.

"Rose," was all the Doctor stated simply, before leading Jack to the medical bay. That night, the Doctor was able to give life back to Captain Jack Harkness. When Rose had brought Jack back to life, neither she nor the Doctor ever expected Jack to retain some residual energy of the Time Vortex. But with the energy that prevented his death finally gone from his body, Jack was able to feel alive again.

Now with two lively companions, the Doctor was once again traveling the universe, saving species, aiding revolutions, causing revolutions… The usual. But not once did he ever return to the Powell Estates. If they did stop in London to visit Martha's parents, he always made sure to land the TARDIS on the other side of the city. Jack used to give him looks about it, but eventually those looks stopped.

It wasn't that the Doctor was completely torn up by the events of what happened at Canary Wharf. To a degree, he was grief-stricken. His best friend, companion, and the girl who had brought him back from the abyss after the death of his home world had been torn from his grasp, only to be trapped eternally in a parallel world. The one chance he had to say good-bye to her, the one chance to return that sentiment she revealed to him with three small words, on that beach in Norway had also been stolen from him, the result of running out of time. 'How ironic,' he thought. 'A Time Lord running out of time.' After the tearful farewell in Bad Wolf Bay and helping Donna home to her family after the wedding fiasco, he shut up Rose's room in a far corner of the TARDIS. He figured that by shutting away her possessions, perhaps it could also help shut up that hole in his hearts that Rose had taken with her. There, in that abyss between his two beating hearts would always exist the memory of Rose. The Doctor knew that despite her being physically gone, she could never really leave him.

With the untimely departure of Rose, the Doctor became somewhat more cautious with his companions. He tended to shut himself off easier than he did prior to Rose. She had healed him yes, but abrupt leaving had led him to be more cautious of his feelings, to be more wary of whom he shared his feelings with. As a result, Martha often felt shut out, and even at times, Jack felt a little left out. Although the Doctor did feel badly about doing such a thing, he knew it was for the best for all three of them. The less feelings shared, the less pain there would be during their inevitable good-byes.

"Doctor!" called Martha. "Come on now!" At the sound of her voice, the Doctor snapped out his reverie. Martha and Jack had just passed the entrance of Graphilsa, one of the largest and most beautiful gardens on the planet. Slowly, the Doctor continued forward but paused at the entrance of the park, staring into it with distant eyes. "Doctor!" This time it was Jack urging him on to follow them down the avenue into the more urban districts of the planet. After a minute of thought, the Doctor waved them on ahead. "You sure?" questioned Martha.

"Yea, you two go on. I'll catch up later. Try not to start anything… Or end something… Or end up in the middle of something. After all, these people were the same ones who invented-"

"Got it, Doctor," Jack interrupted, by now well used to the Doctor's long and incessant tangents. With a wave, he and Martha were strolling off down the walkway arm in arm. The Doctor turned to stare thoughtfully at the gate, before he entered the gardens and was immediately immersed in a world of color. Flowers of every species lined the park's sidewalks. Foreign hybrids of lilacs, orchids, and roses grew in abundance. The planet's equivalents of butterflies and bees flew through the air, and beyond the immediate flowerbeds sprawled massive lawns smelling of apple grass. The aroma brought back a long buried memory, one of an alien and a teenage girl sprawled on a hillside watching the cityscape of New New York before once again plunging into danger.

The Doctor continued on through the gardens and came upon a children's play set. Children both humanoid and non-humanoid darted about laughing and screaming. Some hung off the set of monkey bars, while others contented themselves with playing tag on the play castle. About twenty yards away from the play set, with one leg crossed over the other, a man sat on a bench. Garbed in a pair of black slacks and a blue Oxford button up shirt, he looked quite smart. His brown hair, bordering on ginger, flopped roguishly in his face giving him a youthful appearance, although the man seemed to be in his early-thirties. As the Doctor gazed on at the man with a growing sense of familiarity, he noticed the man was staring at him with a small smirk on his face. Almost warily, the Doctor approached the man sitting on the park bench, the laughing children fading into the background.

"Fancy seeing you here," the man said. The Doctor raised his eyebrows as he stared at the man. "Relax, this time around is just a coincidence. No Master, no paradox, blah blah blah," the man said, while gesturing to a seat next to himself. The Doctor sank into the seat, slightly adjusting his long trench coat.

"Now tell me why don't I believe you?" asked the Doctor.

"Because every time two of us shows up in the same place at the same time there's bound to be trouble?" the man answered.

"Exactly! … So which one are you? Or rather, which one am I?" began the Doctor.

"Eleven," came the response, "And you know I can't tell you when." The Doctor nodded an affirmative, staring off at a group children intent on achieving new heights by catapulting themselves into the air with a seesaw. "So I suppose right now you're with Martha and Jack," Eleven stated.

"For about three months now," said Ten. "They've gone off to see the sights."

"Sounds like them," Eleven stated with a small smile. "And yourself?"

"Didn't feel up to it," Ten answered. Eleven looked at him before turning his attention back to the play set.

"You know, you really need to get back into it," Eleven said.

"Into what?"

"Everything! The adventures, the traveling, the saving the universe!"

"What are you talking about? We just came from-"

"I know where you came from," Eleven interjected. "And let's face it, your hearts aren't into it. When was the last time you actually laughed while fleeing a giant warlord that resemble both a smurf and Jamie Lee Curtis?"

"I laughed!" protested Ten.

"That was not a laugh. That was a sorry attempt at a laugh so as not to worry your companions," explained Eleven.

"Well, excuse me!" Ten huffily retorted.

"You're excused," Eleven said dryly.

"Well then what do you suggest, oh great sage?" inquired Ten with more than a touch of sarcasm.

"Live," stated Eleven simply. His response was followed by silence.

"Is it just me or are you loonier in this regeneration?" replied the Doctor.

"No, I assure you I am quite sane. Perhaps even saner in some respects, " came the answer.

"Oh and why's that? What brought on this sudden epiphany?"

"Da!" came a shout from the playground. Two of the children, a boy and girl, waved wildly mid-swing from the set of swings. At the sight of their father with a stranger, the two leaped off their respective swings on the next forward pass, landing hard but unhurt in the mulch. With laughter bubbling from their voices, they sprinted toward the two men on the bench, but as they approached, the grins slowly turned into incredulous smiles of confusion. "Dad?" they questioned Eleven and turned to look at Ten. "And Dad?" they asked again.

Ten stared on the two in shock. The pair appeared to be a set of fraternal twins, both having the same coloring and standing around the same height. They seemed to be about ten years old, but with Gallifreyans, it was often hard to determine their ages. Ten hesitated, but the doubt that should have been there in his mind was absent. Both the girl and boy had dark chestnut hair he recognized as his own from his current regeneration. The girl even seemed to have retained a bit of his fourth self, as her hair hung in pretty ringlets around her small face. With a small start he also recognized the stormy blue-grey eyes of his previous self. 'This is impossible!' he thought to himself. As if they had heard it, both children turned to look at Ten. 'You of all people should know that impossible is an arbitrary term for things just really difficult,' answered a voice within his mind. Startled, Ten looked the young boy in the eyes and was met with a gaze of wisdom beyond its years.

"Yea, it's me, but a much younger me," stated Eleven, startling Ten out his thoughts momentarily.

"How's it going Dad?" questioned that boy. At Ten's spluttering, Eleven grinned and turned to his children. "Why don't you two go on ahead? Your mother's expecting us soon."

"'K, Da," the twins answered. "Bye Da!" With a pair of killer smiles and sharp salutes, the two turned smartly on their heels and headed toward the park entrance. Eleven stood up stretching from the park bench. "Well? Coming?" he inquired. For the first time in his tenth regeneration, the Doctor was speechless as he too rose from his seat and followed his future self down the walkways, the two children walking side by side in front of them and apparently deep in conversation.

"But- but- how…" managed the Doctor.

"Funny things happen to people even if the think the universe is out to get them," Eleven began. "Even if we feel cheated, there's always a silver lining to things. We used to realize this, but slowly we lost track of that revelation and lost sight of finding the good in things." At Ten's skeptical stare, Eleven sighed and continued, "I know it seems impossible, but hey, since when has that ever stopped us? The thing is I… We need to keep on living, because if we don't, then we cease to exist, and that isn't an option. Despite what we believe sometimes, even we have a happy future in store for us," Eleven stated.

"But when and who-" questioned Ten.

"Now you know I can't answer those," grinned Eleven. "But I can guarantee you, you'll be the happiest you've ever been. And don't worry about domesticity. This place is just a side trip. Next stop: 44 BC, Ides of March, assassination of Caesar. This could get interesting." Ten looked startled. At this, Eleven once again smiled and said, "They've been looking forward to this for months. The end of an era. It's a gift for their 20th birthday." The Tenth Doctor slowly nodded and looked at the children once more. They had reached the outside of the gate and were now waiting by a tree planted along the sidewalk. Ten looked at Eleven and once again nodded.

"Thank you," Ten said. "For telling me this. As for this whole meeting being a coincidence, that's a crock and both you and I know it." Ten grinned, "But I appreciate it."

"I know you did," said Eleven grinning. "After all, I remember this too." After a pause of shared smiles, Ten said, "Well I'd best be going. Who knows what Jack got himself into… "

"Relax. Nothing happens this time around. Well… Except…" Eleven trailed off.

"I got it," replied Ten. With a wave he turned and started down the avenue his Chucks now beating out a pattern on the pavement significantly lighter than the one they had beat earlier that day. As Ten walked away with his back to Eleven and his children, a slim young woman appearing to be in her late-twenties approached Eleven from across the street. Dressed in a blue sundress that matched the Eleventh Doctor's shirt and a pair of white sandals, she came up along side him, her wavy brown hair falling to her shoulders and her brown eyes smiling with her mouth. "Well? You going to be alright? I mean the previous you?" she questioned coming along side Eleven. Eleven smiled down at her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him. "Yeah, after all, I get you don't I?" he asked.

The woman smiled brushing a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. As she did so, the light of the planet's sun caught reflected off the gemstone set in a metallic band around the woman's left ring finger. A plain band of the same material accompanied the ring, which matched a ring placed on the Eleventh Doctor's left ring finger.

"Yeah, you did, and now you can't get rid of me!" she teased.

"Wouldn't want to even if I could," he grinned and laid a kiss on her forehead.

As the Tenth Doctor strolled down the avenue, something inside compelled him to look back at his future regeneration and offspring. He slowed his pace and turned to look at the children, only to see his eleventh regeneration joined by a woman. The couple was flanked on either side by one of the twins, and both were waving madly. As he looked on at the woman, the Doctor swore his hearts skipped a beat. With a small wave, the woman nodded slightly, a small smile blossoming upon her youthful face. An ear-splitting grin found it's way to the Tenth Doctor's face as he waved back.

"See you soon, Doctor," the woman mouthed.

"See you soon… Rose."

**Fin.**

**Well that's my take on it. Now it's time to get a ton of homework done….**


End file.
